Amazon will buy Whole Foods

Amazon.com has announced that it is buying the Whole Foods grocery chain for $13.7 billion.

Commenters are saying that this will help Amazon.com sell groceries on-line. At the news the stock of traditional grocery stores, including Costco, have plummeted.

But the draw of Whole Foods its organic offerings and the attractive atmosphere of the store? I don’t know that Whole Foods–with its high prices and its high social status–would work if customers shopped privately without the social dimension of shopping.

Maybe Amazon will keep the bricks-and-mortar concept, but Whole Foods has been losing money and its new owners are probably planning a technological solution.

Would you buy groceries on Amazon? Would you ever come to the point of never going shopping for anything, just having everything delivered? Wouldn’t you sometimes want to leave your house?

Amazon.com Inc. said it would buy Whole Foods Market Inc. for $13.7 billion as the giant internet retailer makes a deeper push into the grocery space.

Amazon AMZN, +2.44% will pay $42 a share for Whole Foods WFM, +29.10%valuing the grocer at a 27% premium to its closing price Thursday. The deal is expected to close in the second half of this year.

Amazon’s move tanked the stocks of grocery competitors as investors worried that Amazon could do to grocery the same as it did to booksellers. . . .

Amazon’s move into the grocery business comes at a time of change in the industry. Consumers are buying more of their groceries outside of traditional supermarkets. Online merchants, discounters and meal-kit delivery services are all grabbing market share. At the same time, a global commodity glut has pulled down prices for many staple foods over the past 18 months, putting pressure on many retailers to lower prices.